Resources for Foot Care
This Week's Better Pain Coping - Integrative Healthcare Edition
Who Should You See?
A few newsletters ago, I touched on some pain coping tools for plantar fasciitis. Since there are many different reasons for foot pain other than plantar fasciitis, today I’m sharing some provider connections that commonly come up in my practice.
These are providers I often hear about from patients who’ve had positive experiences and these are practices I tend to recommend.
First on the list is an extraordinary physical therapist, Karen Calara of The Next Step Physical Therapy, who among many other talents also has a knack with foot biomechanics and rehab. As with so many of our highly sought-after providers, appointments may not be easy to arrange but well worth the wait.
Recently I’ve also been made aware of Boyd Bender at Peak Sports and Spine PT who has an impressive body of work behind him including time working with professional ballet dancers.
When you need imaging or differential diagnosis by an expert in feet, seeing a podiatrist makes the most sense.
The practice styles of these two different provider groups seem compatible with many of my patients’ foot needs:
Dr. Rion Berg at Foot and Ankle Center of Lake City
Dr. Douglas Hale at Foot and Ankle Center of Washington
Both are known to be conservative about surgical interventions and focus on least invasive measures first.
I have no doubt that there are many more providers who do excellent work and if you have a strong endorsement for someone, please feel free to share with me your experience with them and I’ll add them to my list of recommendations.
The following are some footwear brands that I’ve learned about from patients:
Orthofeet: Orthopedic footwear that looks stylish! 😮
Kane Recovery footwear: These were new to me - also recommended by a patient. They are for people who run and/or work long hours on their feet and need comfort when they get out of their workout or work shoes. Oofos is another brand that markets to this same population segment. The Kane line seems less well known but might be worth checking out too.
Topo Athletic shoes : these were recently described to me as a cross between Keens (for the wide toe box) but less heavy and Hokas but with more moderate cushion in the sole.
Do you have a favorite therapeutic shoe?
Little known fact: I actually sold shoes for several years when I was 16-18. It’s where my appreciation of Birkenstock and Mephisto shoes first started.
The topic of feet always makes me think of the mechanics of walking and all the different ways to think about your gait from the inside. Three years ago, I was spending more time over on the Medium platform where I wrote a series of 9 short posts about walking (starting with this one).
Whether it’s for your feet, knees, hips, low back or your mental health, if you’re investigating how you walk and thinking about how to do it “better” you might find some food for thought in that series of posts. You can also just check out this last post in the series for the nutshell.
Until next week, wishing you better pain coping but also better coping all around!
Ya-Ling J. Liou is the author of The Everyday Pain Guide series She empowers people to transform their pain with confidence, compassion and clarity. Download Dr. Liou’s free blueprint, Roadmap to Better Pain Coping. You’ll get the step-by-step process she uses to help her patients become pain free.